


[1][0][1][9]

by Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Asshole-Meets-Villain Protagonist, Childhood, Dysfunctional Family, Family Drama, Gen, Growing Up, Implied/Referenced Canonical Character Death, Into a Supervillain, Slice Of Life Goes Increasingly Wrong, Slow Burn, Some Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:48:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27117017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/pseuds/Coffin%20Liqueur
Summary: Twenty October 19ths.
Relationships: Jack Baker & Lucas Baker, Lucas Baker & Marguerite Baker, Lucas Baker & Zoe Baker
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	1. October 19th, 1998. Monday. Age 6.

It is October 19th, and Lucas is mad, because his birthday is on a Monday.

He tried to tell Mama that it’s not fair that he has to go to school; she said that it _is_ fair, since that means that he gets two parties: the one they had on Sunday, _and_ the one they’re havin’ in class.

The one on Sunday didn’t count. It wasn’t any fun, though he thinks he likes some of the presents; it was all a bunch of old aunties and uncles and cousins he’s only seen on past holidays and some birthdays, and now that he is old enough to go to school, for his birthday parties, he should get to play with other kids.

Today still doesn’t count ‘cause there’s not enough playing. He already asked Mrs. Portier if he could spend the whole day outside playing ‘cause it’s special; she said no. He knew recess wasn’t gonna count, either, because even that never has enough playing: whenever he tries to play with the girls, reckoning they should be easy to play with just like Zoe, Daddy laughs and asks him why he doesn’t play ball or nothing with the other boys and it’s annoying. Lucas doesn’t like to play ball with the other boys because he doesn’t like playing ball.

He doesn’t like the other boys, either. Just like he doesn't like playing ball, they don't like takin' apart robots and cars the way he does. They get boreder fast of catching bugs and looking at pictures of what things look like on the inside.

He especially doesn't like Oliver today.

“Oliver caught a fever yesterday”, Mama said Mrs. Portier said.

That, of course, meant that he couldn't be here today, and so the whole class isn't here. This means the party isn't full, and it is only fractions of one. Not only is Oliver boring, but he, all by himself, has _messed up_ today.

Lucas doesn't understand why anyone would be _mean_ like that on a day like today.

Everything is bad, and he really really shouldn't have had to come to school today at all.

This is what he thinks, and what he's still thinking when he looks up with narrow, angry eyes when Mrs. Portier stands up, and mimes gasping and screaming, and announces and points out, arm long-outstretched, that “Mrs. Baker is here!"

He bets Mama's not at first, and that even if she is, it don't matter, and that Mrs. Portier is just being annoying by being so loud. He knows he doesn't have any reason to be all yelling-and-happy!

She keeps going. She hops up and down so the other kids will join in; Lucas doesn’t care, resting his chin on his criss-crossed arms, even as he hears her yellin', “And you know what _that_ means!”

A little bell rings, and, though still not caring, he looks over out of conditioning.

Mama is walkin' into the room with Zoe, who's suckin’ on her finger, in one arm, and a big cake on the other. The other kids cheer.

He forgets that the class's not full. It's all really loud, and really happy. He sits up tall and he listens to the cheering, his mouth hanging open wider and wider and shaping like a big half-a-moon as he remembers just that it's his birthday party.

He suddenly feels special, like he's shining from the inside. His eyes light up, and he runs over and hugs Mama’s legs to thank her, and it feels a lot like when he went over to pick up his first-prize trophy in the summer, taking the happy attention and making sure specialness gets to be specialness up with so much joy.

Everyone says, "Happy Birthday, Lucas!" when they walk past him. He doesn't wonder why they didn't say nothing before. Maybe they just forgot, and any way, he guesses it doesn't matter that Oliver didn't show up after all.

Mrs. Portier lowers the lights when it’s time to sing after lunchtime. Everyone does, and it continues not to matter that _one_ stupid person is missing, anyway. He smirks pleased with himself over the cake as he blows out the candles, thinking to himself that clearly, if Oliver missed out on today, it was 'cause he didn't _get_ to share it.

When Oliver comes back to school on Wednesday and Mrs. Portier and all the others welcome him back, Lucas frowns and looks away and decides that he'll pay him back by not doing that, and is pleased with himself for doing so.

He doesn't bother sharin' his gadgets or the cool little stuff he finds with the others when Oliver is around. Nuh, he never liked the others to play with very much, but he has decided that Oliver, who couldn't even be bothered the one thing everybody else got to do, is the worst.

Lucas finds that he is right about that in the spring.

He's been tryin'a stay away from Oliver anyway.

Now when he doesn't want Oliver anywhere near him, here dumb Oliver is followin' him around all the time.

_"Why are you so freaky and weird, Lucas?"_

_"Crazyhead! Crazyhead! You're a crazyhead!"_

Except Lucas remembers something very, very important.

Happy and excited, he writes a fake invitation.

It was, for real, 'cause he didn't belong there anyway that Oliver never showed up to the party. It was true that he hadn't belonged there, anyway, 'cause he was the worst.

Lucas pretends that he never missed it. He leads him into the attic and says it's his hiding spot. He tells him to wait for 'im while he goes to get some stuff to snack on.

He presses the button on his remote.

He smiles as the ladder retracts and the trapdoor closes and Oliver yells "wait, wait, wait, wait!" and starts hitting the floor and yelling his name, but he doesn't really feel like laughing over having played such a good trick. It doesn't feel that funny. When Oliver yells to be let out, Lucas he can't think of anything it'd be funny enough to ask for as payback.

He's just happy to have _shown_ him. The smartest boy in class versus, just like he knew he'd always been right about, the _worst_ boy in class.

He tells Oliver to shut up, and leaves it alone until there ain't nothing to ignore anymore.

Not even more yelling to shut up some more, or crying off which to think _that's what you get._

_Stupid Oliver._

By the same time the next year, the trapdoor is gone.


	2. October 19th, 1999. Tuesday. Age 7.

It’s October 19th.

This time, Lucas is happy to go to school, since ever since this spring, people have been acting  _ so weird _ towards him.

Kids. Grown-ups. They just don’t talk to him, and though the other kids never really did all that much, the grown-ups giving him looks like he’s gonna bite them is a whole lot different from being called  _ smart _ , and  _ special _ ; he doesn’t like it, and doesn’t know why it’s happened. He knows that it started after Oliver died, but it doesn’t make sense for it to be related, since no one ever found out that he was part of why - Mama and Daddy’d helped to make sure, and they’d said it worked.

Today, though, ‘s gonna be different, ‘cause it’s his day, and so everyone’s gonna  _ have  _ to try to be nice to him again.

The way Mama and Zoe’d acted before Mama left ‘em at school made him extra-sure of it.

Zoe’d said Happy Birthday that morning with one of her big clumsy little-kid hugs, and everything Mama said’d seemed so extra-happy. Been excited to say how fast he’s growing up, that she hopes he’s gonna have an amazing day, and tell him she’d be hard at work baking up a big batch of cupcakes to bring to him later - he hadn’t even asked about that last part.

He goes into class, smiling like he knows so much that nobody else does. It’s my birthday today, he says.

The teacher stares at him for a second like what he said didn’t make any sense.

She opens her mouth.

“Happy birthday, Lucas!” she says, but it’s quiet, and she doesn’t smile.

He stares back. He turns on the spot to look back at everybody else, getting into their seats, or packing their things into the cubbies.

His eyes go big and he says it again. Nobody says anything. They just stare, too, with faces like fish. Some of them look at each other, and wiggle in their seats, then don’t look back.

His chest feels cold and his face feels hot. He wants to ask if they heard him, but he doesn’t understand how they couldn’t have.

When he sits down, too, he hunches down over his desk, pressing his hands into fists, breathing loud so he can focus on the sound, and so that way, his thoughts can stop making buzzing noises and instead he can explain it to himself.

They’re being rude, like they’re a whole class full of Olivers, except that they’re here. It occurs to him that he can even say that - that they’re looking at him like he’s crazy, and that’s what they do all the time. He breathes louder, and his nose scrunches - he just told them, though, that today, they shouldn’t.

Then his eyes go fevery as he realizes something. He nods to himself twice sharp, and mutters an  _ “oh, okay” _ . Just like last year, everything will be fine when Mama gets here. She knows what day it is, and she and Zoe noticed that today should be good and special right away! It’ll be just like last year - the day will become special once she shows up, the person who knows how to do everything right.

Sure enough, just like last year, the bell on the classroom door jingles. Lucas’s face lights up already excited for things to be fixed as he sees Mama come in through the door, a big, huge tray of cakes in her hands and Zoe grabbing onto her dress.

“Mama!” he calls, nice and loud, so nobody can’t pay attention.

She says hello back to the birthday boy and he smiles (that’s right!), and says hi to _“all y’all little ones”_ , nice and loud and cooing, too.

Ms. Browning says good afternoon. A couple of the other kids say it, too - “Good afternoon, Mrs. Baker”, or “Ma Baker”, some of ‘em.

They mutter it the same way they do when the whole class says good-morning after the first bell, except quieter.

It doesn’t stop Mama from staying happy and excited, the way everyone should be, and so for now, Lucas is satisfied. He wiggles to sit up higher in his chair; Ms. Browning counts down one, two, three and gets the class singin' in a stupid little drone while Mama zooms and Zoe trips around, both of 'em putting a cake on everyone's desk, Mama giving cheerful "here you are!"s to every stupid boring blankly-staring person and Zoe keeping on a stupid-happy face .

Lucas eats his cake fast and hard, and back behind his smile, his face starts to feel hot again.

Just about everybody else picks at their cake, looking at him weird again.

Whenever he blinks his eyes, he makes it nice and long so he can tell 'em he doesn't care and he's not gonna look back. They're stupid for not letting it be a _party_ ; for them figuring he's gotta be treated _so weird_ nowadays that today, for some reason, has to be more of the same.

He looks up to smile at Mama again, frosting and spit from licking at it sticking to the corners of his face.

At least she's got it.

She doesn't look back at him, too busy talking to Ms. Browning, loud and moving her hands, ending every sentence with a look that's not just neighborly but big and friendly. Ms. Browning nods a little bit here and there and plays with her hair, looking into the class. When she speaks back, it's quiet.

To get her attention, Lucas runs over and asks her if he can get another cake. It works, and she tells him no, 'cause they're all gonna share a real cake together that night after supper, anyway.

He doesn't really mind, 'cause he gets her not only to look back at him, but she gives him a ruffle on the head, which he likes, 'cause it makes him feel charming.

Not to mention he and Zoe each an extra one on the way back home anyway - there's some left over. "Wouldn't do to let any of 'em go stale, now, would it?" she says, sweetly, handing it down and giving his hair another ruffle. "Don't tell your father!"

Because he doesn't, and because he tries to be _very sneaky_ scraping half of his supper onto Zoe's plate that night, he is sure that Dad won't mind when he goes down into the kitchen for an extra piece of real cake, too, before bedtime.

He stops at the bottom of the stairs when he hears Mama crying.

Really stops, too, because sometimes, that's meant trouble, but when he fails to guess where Dad might be, he's put at ease to find him in the kitchen with her, with an arm around her back to pat it here and there while she cries over the sink, her face in her hands; either one of 'em bein' upset on their own usually means either one or both of 'em is more likely to holler when you talk to 'em.

Dad looks at him first, standing in the kitchen doorway - not _pissy_ , a word Lucas ain't supposed to know, but serious, and a little sad, he guesses.

Lucas frowns. _What's wrong?_

Mama looks up at him next, and her eyes go big. Something rumbles in his chest, and he returns the look.

_What's. Wrong?_

She covers and wipes her eyes.

Lucas deflates, relaxing, when she smiles at him. She flaps her hand and shakes her head. "Don't worry about me, baby," she says. "Your mama's just got a lot a' _feelings_ about things, these days...!" She kneels on the ground in front of him and puts the tips of their sharp noses an inch away from each other and puts her hands on the sides of his arms. "Did you have a wonderful day...?"

He hesitates, and finds himself unable not to make his face move. He looks at her with the question repeated, to pout it into being understood. (There was a lot he could do, he found, that felt a lot like being an actor.)

She's crying, which means that it was not, for real, a happy, special day to her. She isn't telling him why. This is keeping secrets, and he wondered if he's being blamed.

_Not fair._

_It ain't fair to blame_ me _for_ my _birthday bein' a bummer._

Still, wanting to leave instead of feeling frustration start to steam and bubble up, he nods. "Mm-hm," he goes.

"I'm so happy, sweetheart," she says, giving him a big, tight hug, wiggling with it and all. "Your folks and sister want nothing more than for our brilliant, handsome, one-of-a-kind boy to feel loved and supported, you understand...?"

"You really are one-in-a-million, son," Dad says. Lucas feels his hand fall on his shoulders.

It feels nice, in a regular way, but it also makes Lucas fidget. He doesn't know why they're doing this.

"We love you so, _so_ much." Mama's hug turns into a bear-hug, and she gives him a kiss on the forehead. "Now run on upstairs and start gettin' ready for bed, all right?"

She smooths his hair. It's only a little bit relaxing this time.

She comes upstairs after he's done what was said to tell him 'n Zoe a story, like everything's normal. She tucks him in with a new plush gator and gives kisses goodnight, and then leaves.

Even lookin' at the gator, it sits with him. Once again, his chest feels cold and his face feels hot.

Mama and Dad, too, acted weird.

He flops over in bed, and _"pssst"_ s across the room to Zoe.

She flops and looks back at him, almost gawking. She wasn't tryin'a sleep, anyway.

"You wanna help me do my new puzzle?" He gives his biggest smile of the day, trying to show her it's a good idea. "The puzzle I _really wanted_ to do?"

She's so excited that she's squeakin'. "I can try the puzzle with five-thousand pieces...?"

It's actually got five-hundred pieces, but he ain't worried about telling her she's wrong, instead sliding out of bed and shuffling in the dark to the toy shelf, the gator still under his arm. He nods at her. "Mm-hn! C'mon 'n get up...!"

He's satisfied with himself and at-ease overall under the hot feeling again, all the way from then till when they curl up on the floor, sleeping despite the special lamp still bein' on and shining on a puzzle that's only halfway done.

Zoe may be a dumb little kid, but _she's_ still easy to play with.

_For some reason,_ she _always gets it._

The next morning, Mama ain't even mad to find that they stayed up playing, laughing that she just hopes Lucas havin' been excited to try out all his new games doesn't mean he's tuckered himself out too much to go to school.

It's like everything is _normal-er-than-normal._


End file.
